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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26927053">Pretty In Pink</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryry_peaches/pseuds/ryry_peaches'>ryry_peaches</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Flufftober 2020 [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Schitt's Creek</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>David Rose is a Good Person, Fluff, Flufftober, Kid Fic, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 02:15:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,235</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26927053</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryry_peaches/pseuds/ryry_peaches</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>David helps his niece learn to express herself.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Patrick Brewer/David Rose</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Flufftober 2020 [9]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949071</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>107</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Pretty In Pink</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For flufftober day 9: monochromatic.  Ft. Alexis and Ted's kid bc it's my post-canon and i can do what i want.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Wow," David says from the doorway.</p>
<p>"This is…really something," Patrick agrees, putting a hand on David's shoulder.</p>
<p>Alexis shrugs.  "It's what she wanted.  What was I supposed to say?"</p>
<p>"It's just very…"  David tries to think of the right word.  "Um, pink."</p>
<p>"Oh, I'm aware."  Alexis glances around the room as if she's not the one who decorated it.  "It's fine.  We can always redecorate in a few years."</p>
<p>"DAVID!  UNCLE PATRICK!"  A small body barrels into David from behind, and he turns to hug his niece.</p>
<p>"Hey, Mikey," he says, squeezing her.  "Your mom was just showing us your new room."</p>
<p>"Isn't it perfect?"  Mikey shoves past him and twirls through the center of her room before collapsing on her bright pink beanbag chair.</p>
<p>"Mm, it's like a Pottery Barn Teen storage facility," David says with a forced smile.  Fortunately, Mikey laughs, because just about everything David says is apparently funny to a twelve-year-old.  Or so he's been learning.</p>
<p>"It's very cool, Mikey," Patrick says diplomatically, although David notes that he's looking at the carpet, which is fortunately the only non-pink thing in the room, because the entire upstairs matches and Ted drew the line at tearing up perfectly good flooring to redo one single room.  The drapes, walls, bedding, and desk set were not granted such a mercy.</p>
<p>David is having flashbacks to Alexis's princess themed ninth birthday party, but he tries to remind himself that the only important thing is whether Mikey likes it.</p>
<p>"Thanks, Uncle Patrick," Mikey says, smiling up from her seat.  </p>
<p>David notes with some interest that Mikey herself is not wearing anything pink.  He's only vaguely familiar with the concept of having separate aesthetics for decorating and dress.</p>
<p>"Hey Mikey," he tries.  "Uncle Patrick and I are in town for a few days.  How about a little shopping trip tomorrow?  A little girls' day?"</p>
<p>"Calling gay guys 'girls' is homophobic," Mikey informs him somberly, and David can feel Patrick laughing behind him.</p>
<p>He files away a reminder to himself to never try joking with Mikey again.  "An uncles-and-niece day, then."</p>
<p>"I don't know…"</p>
<p>"We can get ice cream at that place with the toppings bar," David tries, although that's more his own desire speaking.  Fortunately, Mikey brightens at that, and agrees to a shopping trip.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The next day sees David, Patrick, and Mikey in a department store — not nearly to the standard that David would love to frequent, but nicer than anything in the Elms — with Patrick off browsing homegoods as David patiently tries to encourage Mikey.</p>
<p>As Mikey tries on jeans and neutral sweaters and graphic tees, David remembers their trip to visit her and her parents just about a year ago.  Mikey had spent the whole week decked out in tulle skirts and rubber bangles, looking like some kind of 80s pop fever dream — David is pretty sure at some point he say a neon fishnet sleeve peeking out of a T-shirt.</p>
<p>"Hey, Mikey," he calls through the door, "are you sure the things here are really your style?  We can go somewhere else."</p>
<p>"No, this is great!  All the girls at school wear this kind of stuff," she calls back.</p>
<p>David frowns to himself.  "Okay, sure.  But do you like it?"</p>
<p>Mikey appears in the doorway in her own clothes, a pile of sweaters draped over her arm.  "Sure," she says, and brushes past David to put most of them on the gobacks rack.  </p>
<p>"What happened to all your… your tutus and tights and that kind of thing?"  He makes an encompassing gesture.</p>
<p>"Ew, David," Mikey says, sounding a startling amount like Alexis.  "That stuff is for babies."</p>
<p>David frowns some more, this time directly at her.  "No it's not.  Didn't you like dressing that way?"</p>
<p>"It doesn't matter," Mikey says with a dismissive wave.  "No one else does.  I looked like a circus freak."</p>
<p>David can feel his frown deepening so hard, it will probably give him permanent lines.  "Michaela," he says, surprised.  "Who told you that?"</p>
<p>Mikey fidgets with the cuff of her sleeve.  "Basically everyone?  Nobody wants to hang out with a girl who dresses like a clown.  It's not cool."</p>
<p>David tugs Mikey over to the little bench in the fitting room area and sits her down.  "Okay, Mikey, I want you to be honest with me.  Do you think I'm cool?"</p>
<p>"Duh," Mikey says.  "You're my favorite uncle."  And then, "Don't tell Uncle Patrick I said that."</p>
<p>David's heart thumps weird at being this kid's favorite uncle, out of Patrick and Ted's closest, smart doctor friends, but he brushes past it because this isn't about him.  "Mikey, I am about to show you something that no one knows about, except for your mom, and Grandpa and Gams Rose, and Aunt Stevie and Uncle Patrick, and TMZ.  So you have to keep it a secret, okay?"</p>
<p>Mikey nods, blue eyes wide and piercing and serious.</p>
<p>"Okay."  David unlocks his phone and swipes through his gallery until he gets to the folder of pictures from when he was a kid, the ones he had Patrick scan for his parents several years back.  Until he hits high school.  "This is how I dressed when I was not much older than you," he says, and hands her the phone.</p>
<p>David is aware that his style back then and Mikey's style a year ago are not that different, but he keeps quiet as she peruses pictures of him with pink streaks through his straightened hair, the nose ring he stopped wearing when he turned eighteen, arms loaded down with shock-bright kandi.  </p>
<p>"Holy shit," Mikey says, and David resists the urge to chastise her for cussing because it would be fucking hypocritical.  "But didn't everyone your age dress like that?"</p>
<p>David laughs at her.  "No, literally no one else at my school dressed like that, and I got made fun of, and I only had like two friends.  But it doesn't matter, you know why?"</p>
<p>Mikey heaves the kind of sigh that says she is already familiar with these kinds of affirmations.  "Because you were being yourself?"</p>
<p>"Well…you are always yourself, no matter how you dress or what your friends think," he says, "but yes, because I was expressing myself."</p>
<p>Mikey stares at the carpet and plays with a hole in her jeans, and David sighs.  "Listen," he says.  "If you really want these clothes that the other girls are wearing, I'll buy them for you.  I know how hard it can be to not fit in, and if that's what you need right now, there will be plenty of time to figure out the self-expression thing later, okay?  I love you very much, no matter how you dress.  But if you'd like to buy some things that are more just your own style, I'd be more than happy to buy you some tutus and stuff too, okay?"</p>
<p>"How about some of both?"  She sounds unsure.</p>
<p>"That sounds perfect," David says, and allows her to take his hand as they set off to find Patrick.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The next morning, Mikey is the last person to be ready for breakfast out, but when she appears, she's dressed like a princess, in a baby pink tulle skirt, a matching t-shirt, and sneakers with pink laces.  She immediately rushes to David's side and squeezes his hand, squeezing his heart along with it as she says, "Thank you, David."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>come say hi on tumblr @loveburnsbrighter</p></blockquote></div></div>
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